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I AM A Street Sports Photographer (19.09.2013)
Introduction
To inspire a generation of photography enthusiasts, Nikon invited three pro photographers from across Europe to share their tips on how to capture some of the coolest street sports: skateboarding, freestyle football and parkour. Equipped with a Nikon D5200 DSLR camera, and a selection of NIKKOR lenses, each pro photographer shares advice on how to shoot their chosen street sport, accessible to anyone with an eye for photography. The adrenaline-fuelled nature of street sports makes them ideal for photography enthusiasts keen to think creatively about their subject, regardless of their expertise, or the equipment they own.
Parkour
Born in Bucharest, Romania, Claudiu Voicu, 26, is a professional street sports photographer and videographer. A former parkour athlete himself, he first developed his cinematic eye by capturing fellow parkour athletes on video, before eventually turning his attention to still photography. One of the primary contributors of the free-running movement in Europe, he’s been involved with parkour for over a decade and has been shooting stills professionally for the past four years.
As a teenager, the area that he used to play street hockey on was redeveloped. At a loss for what to do in his spare time, he and his friends discovered they could jump between the concrete structures of their houses and use their own athleticism to entertain themselves. Put simply, they had discovered ‘free running’, a mix of extreme sports and martial arts that has taken Europe by storm since the late 90s.
With a background in videography, for him, the Nikon D5200 provides an ideal balance between high-resolution image processing and HD motion capture. Prepared to climb even the most intimidating of architectural structures to compose an image, athletically, he’s a match for most of his subjects. Tell-tale signs of his video heritage emerged in a shoot with top free-runner Sam Parham, where he frequently used the D5200’s vari-angle monitor to frame images in tight angles. This allowed him to get creative shots that would be difficult to compose using the viewfinder alone.
Stylistically, Claudiu likes to emphasize colours and capture adrenaline in his shots. “I see the movements in the locations”, he explains. He chooses to work very closely with his subjects, making calls like a movie director to signal the start of an energetic sequence or series of jumps. To separate the subject from the backdrop – both equally as important in parkour photography – Claudiu chooses to contrast the frequently neutral, earthy colours of distressed architecture with vivid block-coloured clothing on his subjects. Visually, by combining a bright red t-shirt with vibrant red shoes, front flips, footwork and feats of physical strength can really stand out against speckled grey walls.
Claudiu explains: “Trial and error makes the concept of shooting parkour accessible to anyone. The athletes express themselves freely, and that’s reflected in the way free-running is photographed. Parkour itself is about self-improvement, it’s about pushing the boundaries of what’s achievable and like any extreme sport, this involves an element of danger. To capture this, I use a wide lens to intensify the spectacle unfolding before me. If there’s a huge drop, or unnerving gap for a free-runner to jump, revealing it can add emotive context, in the form of adrenaline, to the still.”
Claudiu Voicu’s tips for shooting parkour:
- Shoot raw – Carry a large SD card to capture raw files that can be manipulated in post-production, and invest in a wide angle lens
- Choose inspiring locations – The urban landscape is your obstacle course, visualising the location before a shoot is crucial
- Capture colourful clothing – Think carefully about what your subjects are wearing in order to make them stand out from their surroundings
Freestyle Football
Olly Burn, 29, is a professional reportage and sports photographer from London, England. Ever since picking up his first DSLR camera at university – a Nikon D70 – Olly has embraced his passion for capturing the outdoor world around him and places his rapport with people at the heart of his digital work.
There’s nothing staged about Olly. In his world, interaction and spontaneity are the elements of intrigue and surprise that motivate his trigger finger. He comments: “my philosophy is to shoot as much and as often as possible, experiment with light and pay attention to everything that inspires me, from movies to magazines, emotions and expressions”.
A perceptive photographer, Olly is attracted to the creativity and fluidity that freestyle football embodies. Quick off the mark and vocal in his direction, he prefers to switch his DSLR to auto focus and let the action in front of him compose the photo. In direct sunlight for a shoot with pro football-freestyler Abbas Farid, Olly took the ISO as low as possible on his Nikon D5200, chose a shallow depth of field and wide aperture, and kept a close eye on his shutter speed at all times. By using the D5200’s 39-point auto focus he was able to follow the dazzling footwork and revolving football with his viewfinder, primed and ready to capture even the most unpredictable of movements from the athlete.
On the Nikon D5200, Olly comments: “There is a misconception that the better the camera you have, the better photographer you will be, but many professional high end features are now available on smaller cameras that allow you to do more, for less. The autofocus on the D5200 is a great example of this”.
Rich, textured images of athletic rainbow kicks and breath-taking ball skills set against mottled street level backdrops make freestyle football one of the most difficult street sports to shoot well. To add fantasy and intrigue to his still photographs, Olly chooses to shoot directly into the sun and use the eclipse of local architecture to showcase his signature style and inject some flare.
Olly Burn’s tips for shooting freestyle football:
- Be alert – Shoot fluidly so you don’t miss unexpected tricks
- Don’t be too precious – Shoot more than you need, with digital storage on DSLRs there is no reason to hold back
- Embrace the surrounding environment – Freestyle football can be done almost anywhere, incorporate the backdrop and the weather into your shots
Skateboarding
Anglo-Dutch pro photographer Tom Van Schelven, 28, has been shooting street sports for the past four years. He has an intuitive attitude towards photography, built upon the notion that “if your camera is always on, your instincts will direct the lens”. Unquestionably dedicated and remarkably daring, he is right at home sat between the concrete valleys of a sun-kissed skatepark.
Since turning professional, Tom has travelled the world living life through his viewfinder. A fan of street sports himself, he got involved in skate shoots when he worked as a photography assistant and realised the variety of shot compositions in skateboarding could bring his own portfolio to life. Flips, grabs, grinds and airtime require superfast shutter speeds and Tom’s graphic style of photography is epitomised by the harsh lighting and fluid movement he looks for when isolating subjects and reducing anything from the shot that disturbs the focus.
Keen to direct, and equally willing to receive input from skaters, he’ll continually get creative to catch a perfect shot, using manual settings. To shoot pro-skater Jak Tonge, he went out of his way to perch atop a ladder at the edge of a quarter pipe and crawl in the depths of a graffiti-laden bowl to experiment with new angles.
He comments: “For me, the Nikon D5200’s 24.1 megapixel resolution has a high enough pixel count to take a wide shot from a precarious vantage point and crop it down afterwards without losing any quality. I love shooting skateboarding like this, and you’ll see it often in my work. My lens of choice is the NIKKOR 24mm-70mm f/2.8 as it provides the flexibility required to adapt with the skater’s rapid movements”.
Tom van Schelven’s tips for shooting skateboarding:
- Know your subject – To capture really stunning shots, study the body language of the skater to anticipate their movements
- Think about lighting – Shadows and surface reflection can actually enhance your images if you pay them enough attention
- Aspire to simplicity – Look for crisp, clean contrasts and minimal subject matter
A photo of an Estonian photographer was chosen among the world’s best sports photos
The best photos of Red Bull Illume were pronounced in Hong Kong. An Estonian Jaanus Ree also took part in the award ceremony – his photo of a Norwegian skateboarder Gard Hvaara taken during the Simple Session 2013 practise day was chosen among the 50 best photos of 6417 photographers.
Ree said that the news came to him as a surprise and at first, he couldn’t believe it. According to him, it has been one of the highlights of his career.
A German photographer Lorenz Holder won the main prize at the Red Bull Illume photography contest – his breath-taking photo had a snowboarder next to a giant satellite dish on it.
The best 50 photos were published in 2x2m light boxes at a famous Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong, where the exhibition is up for the next three weeks. From there, the exhibition travels on to a world tour.
Red Bull Illume is a world-wide sports photography contest that was held for the 13th time this year. This year, 28 257 photos from 124 countries were presented to the contest.
Jaanus Ree: “Although, I tried to take photos for that precise contest, I actually added the winning photo at the last minute to fill a blank photo space. When I received an email that my photo had chosen among 250 out of 28 250 photos and from 6417 photographers, I was very happy – all extreme sports photographers dream about that. When I found out that my photo was named among 50 best, I couldn’t believe it before I was actually in Hong Kong and looked at my photo at the Red Bull Illume exhibition printed out and put into 2x2m light box and having that major city on the background. It is unthinkable that my photo is now seen by appr. 500 million people!
In addition to the fact that I won a notable place at the contest, I also got to interact with photographers whose work I have been following for years and gotten a lot of inspiration from. Workshops together with 50 of the best extreme sports photographers gave me a lot of new ideas and thoughts to do in the future and where to develop next.“
